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A Stalag was the term used during the First and Second World War for prisoner-of-war camps in Germany. The word Stalag is an abbreviation of the German word: Stammlager. At each Stalag the German Army set up sub-camps called Arbeitskommando to hold prisoners in the vicinity of specific work locations. These kommandos ranged in size from a handful of POWs working on a farm to several hundred prisoners working in coalmines or quarries. An Oflag - from the German word: Offizierslager - was a prisoner of war camp for officers only. In accordance with the requirements of the Third Geneva Convention, officers held prisoner at Oflags were not required to work Probably the best known of these Prisoner of War camps is Stalag Luft III, a massive camp near Sagan, Silesia, Germany (now Żagań, Lubuskie, Poland). This camp was the site of spectacular escape attempt (later filmed as: The Great Escape). On March 24, 1944, 76 Allied prisoners escaped through a 110 m long tunnel. 73 were recaptured within two weeks. 50 of them were executed by order of Hitler. Other notable camps include the notorious Oflag IV-C, the Colditz Castle prisoner-of-war camp for "incorrigible" Allied officers who had repeatedly escaped from other camps; Stalag II-B just outside Hammerstein in Pomerania (now Czarne, Pomorskie, Poland), where treatment of prisoners was considered worse than at any other camp in Germany established for American POW; Stalag III-C, where up to 12,000 Soviet prisoners were killed or starved to death, near Küstrin, Brandenburg, Germany (now Kostrzyn nad Odrą, Lubuskie, Poland); and Oflag II-C, a Prisoner-of-War camp comprising of up to 5,000 Polish officers and orderlies, in Woldenburg, Ostbrandenburg / Neumark, Germany (now Dobiegniew, Lubusz, Poland). This website focuses on the Oflag and Stalag POW camps, which were located in the east of Germany during the Second World War, but since the redrawing of the borders of Germany in 1945, are now mostly located in Poland. It will include personal accounts of everyday life for a prisoner of war in German Stalag and Oflag camps. Below is a list of the Prisoner of War camps, which this site will cover in detail. Follow the links to find information on these individual Oflags and Stalags. See also: Map of POW camps; Full list of German POW Camps; Guided Tours
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© Stalag Oflag POW 2007 |
